Rutan by
Ruben Ostlund, director and writer of The Palme D’Or Winner The Square http://realini.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-square-written-and-directed-by.html and two more masterpieces and…another
Palme winner – Triangle of Sadness https://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2023/01/one-of-best-films-of-2022-triangle-of.html
10 out of
10
To win the
Palme D’Or once is an extraordinary achievement, but to reach this zenith
twice, and in the timeframe of just five years is indeed a miracle, which is
what Ruben Ostlund is able to deliver, for there is another proof of his
massive talent, Force Majeure http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/08/note-on-force-majeure-written-and.html not as familiar as The Square, but
a formidable work of art.
In Force
Majeure there is a little avalanche that seems to be sweeping away and
engulfing the terrace where the main characters are sitting, along with other
customers, and when this danger appears imminent, pater familias takes off,
leaving spouse and two children behind to…well, save his skin and survive.
This is the
point he is trying to make in the aftermath of this debacle, that it was the
instinct, the survival mechanism that took over, after all, we have programmed
a ‘fight or flight’ attitude, explained in the quintessential Blink The Power
of Thinking Without Thinking by luminary Malcolm Gladwell http://realini.blogspot.com/2013/05/blink-power-of-thinking-without.html with the help of The Thin Slicing
Theory, we form opinions, take decisions (often the wrong ones, see the
shooting down of a commercial airplane by the aircraft carrier Vincennes, described
in the chef d’oeuvre) in seconds
Hollywood has
looked at this titanic Force Majeure and launched a remake, called Downhill http://notesaboutfilms.blogspot.com/2020/05/downhill-among-birds-of-paradise.html which is alas what the result is,
when compared with the original, the version with the skilled Julia Louis
Dreyfuss and extremely amusing (generally, not very much here) Will Ferrell is
all way down, a much less successful endeavor, where the deep, solid,
challenging analysis from the Ruben Ostlund original is replaced with attempts
to be funny.
Admittedly,
you could take the run of the pater familias in that register, there is all
this snow tumbling down, and what does he do, looks for an exit for himself – I
just watched a clip attached to IMDB and saw how they jokes about the filming,
and how the fellow with the Silent Bob (caricatured by Bill Maher, who said
that if you are an adult wearing shorts always, you cannot be taken seriously,
or something along those lines, Insha’Allah) was laughing about telling his
wife that he would run too, in the same circumstances
There is a
legitimate impulse to find cover, when there is danger, the ancestors that took
flight (or fought when necessary) where the ones that transmitted their genes,
and we have this survival instinct built in, clearly, it is sine qua non for
the species, which otherwise would not survive, but the motion picture is
sublime in that it offers, different points of view, because there is evidently
something to be said about trying to save your family, not just running for
cover and letting them perish…
Nonetheless,
the point of this note is not about Force Majeure – actually, it is so damn
good that a note especially dedicated to it should, or must be planned right
now…comment, like share, fund through PayPal or whatever, so that I can get to
put down by essential contribution in the next days 0 but more about Triangle
of Sadness…yes, I know, you are asking (if you are still here) what the hell does
this have to do with Triangle and the answer is Ruben Ostlund is the Magister
Ludi that won the Palme D’Or twice, once for The Square and in 2022 for The
Triangle, only there is no entry on goodreads for it.
Yes, I
tried to create it, but one has to be a librarian to be allowed to execute this
sacrament, hence, why not say a few words here, about a fantastic movie,
clearly one of the best of the year and of this century – we can have a
surprise and see it winning both the Palme and Oscar for Best Film, like the
glorious Parasite http://realini.blogspot.com/2019/08/parasite-written-by-jin-won-han-and.html did four years ago, only this is
would be a chance in a thousand – with major themes debated, modern, amusing,
solid, a landmark.
Take the
beginning and the satire (which is used all the way through) the comparison
between Balenciaga, where they look down on people, those who wear this and the
other hugely expensive, exclusive as in this is the point, it is no longer
deluxe, when you see it all over the place, brands have the arrogance of the
wealthy, while H&M is more accessible (at least for the rich world) and it
comes with a (perhaps) authentic, Duchene smile http://realini.blogspot.com/2017/09/the-tip-top-club-by-garrison-keillor.html
Incidentally,
a research looked at the importance of the Duchene smile (what am I saying,
there must be thousands of studies on the matter) and saw that those who smile
in the photos taken at the end of college have more successful private and
professional lives – they went to see how they are doing, after say two, five,
seven and more years – than the people who had not smiled in the albums made at
the end of school.
We can say
that we have a sort of ‘class struggle’ on the yacht and later down the road in
the narrative, with the well to do benefiting from all that money can buy, while
the working classes have to clean up after their shit (literally, and then
there is also a massive vomiting session, which could be listed here as one of
the few objections I have to what is a near perfect work of art…yes, one fat
cat pouring his, her, their guts out is maybe even funny, a few would enhance
the argument and maybe induce wellbeing among members of the public who could
say ‘look at these fucking rich folks, badass and repugnant’, but when it gets
to be a festival, it is pushing it too far for yours truly) and then we can
also see what happens when the tables are turned, we have the overwhelming
presence of one God of Cinema, Woody Harrelson, as the hilarious and always
drunk captain, parting with a number of jokes on Marxists and others…it is a
sublime chef d’oeuvre, a film that is not just memorable, but a classic already
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